My mom caught the first 4 bass and started getting cocky, but I came back with a couple largemouths on a senko, she caught a few more,  then I switched to a yellow and white spinnerbait, and landed 3 fish on 3 casts.  After that the spinnerbait bit turned off. I swicthed between a senko and a silver pop and chug, landing a couple fish here and there, but my mom stuck with her wacky rigged senko which produced a steady bite all night.

Although I tried to come back, it just wasn’t in the cards… Final numbers were Mom: 13, Me: 9.  The biggest largemouth went to me (~3lbs) and my mom had the biggest smallmouth (~2lbs).  Overall it was a good night considering they just treated the lake for weeds on July 15th.

As always a little less boat traffic and little more respect on the lake would be nice, but that is probably asking too much.

The weather was beautiful, despite the dreary start to the day, so we headed out to my favorite weed beds and after a quick tutorial on how to use a spinning reel we all started fishing senkos. I decided to throw three different colors: black and yellow swirl, june bug, and green and silver swirl. The junebug senko was wacky rigged with an octopus circle hook so Randy could have an easier time setting the hook since it was his first time. Erik and I threw texas rigged senkos. As it turned out, it didn’t matter what color or rigging method we used, the fish were hungry and were going to eat anything. What a difference a day can make.

On his first cast Erik was explaining to Randy how to work the bait, when he hooked a nice bass which came off right at the boat. Randy then caught his first fish, a nice 2-2.5lb largemouth. While getting his camera phone, the fish found its way back into the lake, so here is a picture of his second fish (much smaller).


Not big but still fun! (Click to enlarge)

In total we caught about 7 fish on our first drift (it was a little windy at that time so it was a quick drift). We did a second and third drift and caught another 5-10 fish. At this point the boat traffic really picked up and appearently we were right in the party boat lane since everyone and anyone on a boat wanted to get as close to us as possible and drive directly through the weeds we were fishing. We went to another set of grass mats and landed 6 or 7 more fish. Randy caught 3 in a row off of a dock, and started bragging, asking me how many I had caught. I switched to a topwater banana boat, and landed 3 fish in a row which shut him up. Unfortunately one fish was quite possibly the smallest bass I have ever caught, and definitely the smallest I ever caught on a 4 inch topwater lure:

After the hits stopped at location two we moved on to my third grassy location, and only caught 2 fish using my banana boat. After that we decided to go back to our original spot since the boat traffic seemed to die off. Erik and Randy continued throwing senkos, and I switched to a firetiger pop and chug. They landed another 5 or 6 fish and I caught another 4 or 5 on topwater, the biggest being around 2.5lbs as the last little bit of sunshine was fading behind the horizon.

We went in for the evening and played some wii fit, and rampage total destruction. It was a fun night with good company, good fishing and even better weather. Randy is definitely hooked, and will likely be buying his first rod and reel soon!

Conditions: Calm to Breezy, warm, dusk, water temp 77 degrees

I got home and checked the radar and there was no rain within 500 miles so I got my stuff together and launched the boat. I got out about 10 minutes before Buddy got to my house so I started fishing around the small rocky island 50 feet off of my backyard. I had seen 2 huge balls of baitfish working the surface while I was loading up the boat so I threw a green wacky rigged senko where they were. After a few jigs I saw the bait come back up to the surface, so I put that rod down while it was still in the water and threw a small rooster tail into the school of bait hoping to catch one and find out what they were.

On the first cast I landed a large sunfish, and when I brought it into the boat it had all three treble hooks in its mouth. As I worked the hooks out, I feel my other pole tugging since I was holding it with my feet. I grabbed it with my right hand and set the hook. The sunfish then fell off of my lure with the treble hook still in its mouth. I inspected the lure and found that the loop had NOT been broken and the treble hook was sealed. I have no idea how it came off, clearly this was a “Houdini panfish”. I took the hook out and released the sunfish, then started working on the senko fish. I got it to the boat and it was a 1lb smallmouth. Definitely an interesting double!

Right as I landed that smallie, Buddy showed up and got into the boat and we headed to the other side of the lake to fish the weed beds I had been having good success on this last week. On the way we saw at least 10 more schools of baitfish working the surface. For some reason the sunfish were balled up tight and were quite active, but there were no gamefish sitting underneath them.

We fished the grass mats for a good 70 minutes with senkos, catching a few bass from 1-3lbs and buddy had two breakoffs (he is like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, when he fights his fish). I also threw a firetiger pop and chug and landed a couple nice bass, but there was no real consistent bite last night. We fished the shoreline on the way in and Buddy caught a razor-mouthed smallmouth that took a nice chomp on my thumb. It started to to get too dark to see so we packed up and called it a night.

We ordered chinese food (so much for the gym) and watched a TBS marathon of crappy movies starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. What an exciting evening …

Conditions:
Water Temp 76 degrees, calm, cloudy, dusk.